


Proper Preparation

by yunitsa



Category: due South
Genre: Gen, pre-BDTH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-29
Updated: 2007-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:51:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunitsa/pseuds/yunitsa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-"Burning Down the House". Ray Kowalski gets an offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proper Preparation

"So what do I call him?"

"Who?"

"The Mountie. Constable Ben-ton Fra-ser," he enunciates. "What does Vecchio _call_ him?"

The FBI agent -- her name is something like Cartwright or Carlyle, but Ray thinks of her as Agent Scully because she's got the haircut and the deadly glare -- glances over at his new lieutenant, Welsh, who's sitting slouched in the corner, looking bored with the whole thing. Welsh seems like an okay guy, one of those cops who's in it for the being-a-cop and not for the power and the paperwork -- Ray's had a couple of bosses like that, and it wasn't fun. Of course, for all he knows, _Ray Vecchio_ could be like that, a real all-about-the-paperwork, dot-the-t's-and-cross-the-i's kind of guy, and that would mean that _Ray_ is now that kind of guy, because that's how it works. But he doesn't think so.

"He usually calls him Benny," Welsh says.

"Benny, that's cute," Ray says automatically. "No way am I calling him that."

"Need I remind you--"

"I know, I know; but I am _not_ calling him _that_. He'd deck me."

Agent Scully raises her perfectly-arched eyebrows. "Deck you?"

"I show up instead of Vecchio pretending like I'm his partner and best bud and calling him _Benny_? Yeah, he'd deck me. _I'd_ deck me."

"You've clearly never met Constable Fraser," Welsh says.

Thing is, he's starting to feel kind of bad for him, this Fraser, with the way they all talk about him like he's a museum exhibit. Because Ray knows what that's like -- he's spent the past two years as Exhibit A in the Museum of Pathetic Ex-Husbands: _yeah, that Kowalski, he'd go undercover as anybody or any_thing_ since his wife left him_. Which would always just make him think of Stella, her face pinched as she'd told him, _We'll say it was mutual, Ray. A mutual decision_. Stella had this lawyer-thing where if you could say it, that made it true, as though anybody would ever believe that _he_ had made a mutual decision to get divorced from _her_.

So now Ray tries to change the topic, but what comes out is, "Are you sure I shouldn't at least dye my hair?" which is something he really hadn't wanted to bring up again, because the next step to dyeing would be shaving it, and if he's got to spend the next however-long being Italian, there's no way he's spending it _bald_. But still: "Won't somebody notice that me and Vecchio, I don't know, _look nothing alike_?"

"In cases like this," Agent Scully tells him, "we've found that confidence serves better than any amount of disguise. Your family calls you Ray Vecchio, your badge says Ray Vecchio, when the phone rings for Ray Vecchio, you answer it. You _are_ Ray Vecchio. Anybody who says differently is--"

"Either wrong or crazy, got it."

_Confidence_. Oh, yeah, he's got that in spades. When they'd called him in to pitch him the Vecchio gig, he'd tried his best to look real bored with it, as though his own life was going just peachy now, thanks, and why would he want to take on anybody else's?

"So what's in it for me?" he'd demanded, folding his arms over the back of the chair.

"A supplement to your salary for the duration, of course. But as this is such a long-term assignment, with no definite ending date…" Agent Scully had trailed off, looking thoughtful. "Let's say this, Detective Kowalski. _If_ you manage to complete your time undercover without screwing this up, you will be allowed to retire. No questions asked, full pension."

"Retire, huh." Ray pinched the bridge of his nose, sore from where his glasses rubbed (Ray Vecchio didn't wear glasses) and for some reason, for the first time in his life since Stella, that sounded that something he might actually like to live to do. "Retire and go _where_?"

"Why," Agent Scully had said coolly, "that is entirely up to you."


End file.
